


Five Times Tony Stark missed Peter Parker

by ironmanisalive



Category: Iron Man (Movies), Marvel Cinematic Universe, Spider-Man (Tom Holland Movies), Spider-Man - All Media Types
Genre: 5+1 Things, Angst, Avengers: Endgame (Movie) Compliant, Avengers: Infinity War Part 1 (Movie) Compliant, F/M, Grief, I'm so sorry, Iron dad and Spider son
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-05-26
Updated: 2020-05-26
Packaged: 2021-03-03 00:01:41
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Major Character Death
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,323
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/24395440
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/ironmanisalive/pseuds/ironmanisalive
Summary: ...and one time Peter missed Tony
Relationships: Morgan Stark (Marvel Cinematic Universe) & Tony Stark, Pepper Potts/Tony Stark, Peter Parker & Pepper Potts, Peter Parker & Tony Stark
Comments: 2
Kudos: 49





	Five Times Tony Stark missed Peter Parker

I  
“If you’re nothing without the suit, then you shouldn’t have it.”  
Tony realized that his words were harsh, but the kid had almost lost an entire ferry’s worth of lives. He really only took the suit away to save Peter the pain of being the hero that couldn’t save everyone. He didn’t want a 15-year-old kid to have the guilt-ridden nightmares that Tony himself had been suffering from for years.  
At first, he’d been relieved that he’d saved Peter from that fate. He felt good about his decision to stop Spider-Man before he could go somewhere that he wouldn’t come back from—whether it be physically or emotionally.  
He didn’t want a teenager with Tony Stark-level guilt issues walking around. Hell, he’d feel guilty about it.  
However, his song changed as more time passed.  
You see, Tony had listened to Peter’s voicemails to Happy every night. He’d grown a sort of fondness for the kid that he’d been afraid to act on, lest he turn out like his father and ruin this kid’s life. He watched the Baby Monitor footage frequently and soon began to look forward to seeing what else Peter could/would do. Rhodey had teased him over the phone when he’d started talking about the drug deal that Peter stopped. (“You sound like a proud parent, Tones.” “That’s not what I sound like at all, platypus.”)  
About a week after he took the suit back, he started to realize that he missed the kid’s little “mission reports”. He missed watching Spider-Man swoop in to save the day (and making a few snarky remarks while doing it). He’d never admit it to anyone, though.  
And then his plane had crashed. After checking in with the kid (“I’m fine, Mr. Stark. I heal fast, remember?”) and offering him a new suit and rank in the Avengers (“Somebody’s gotta look out for the little guy, right?”), he found himself looking quite forward to the Baby Monitor footage and learning about the kids’ achievements. He even installed better quality cameras in the suit before returning it to the friendly neighborhood Spider-Kid.

II  
After Peter had declined the offer to be an Avenger, he’d started hanging out with Tony at least once a week. Tony bought back the Tower (he publicly blamed it on his eccentricity, but it was totally for the kid) and they had “lab days”. They’d work on Spider-Man stuff, Iron Man stuff, or Peter’s homework. Sometimes, he’d even let Peter help make adjustments on Rhodey’s braces. After a few hours of work, they’d order a pizza and watch Brooklyn 99 or something like that. This hadn’t been the case at first, but they quickly became comfortable enough with eachother that hanging out was completely normal.  
(Tony had also been invited to the Parker’s apartment for dinner on multiple occasions, after reconciling with May for keeping such a big secret about her nephew from her. He’d also met Ted, one of Peter’s friends.)  
This had been going on for about four months when Peter called Tony to cancel their weekend plans because he had an Academic Decathlon meet in Philadelphia that he’d forgotten about until the last minute.  
“I’m so sorry Mr. Stark, but I can’t miss another meet or I’ll get kicked off the team.”  
Tony let the kid off easily, telling him to have fun and not to worry about him, but he was kind of sad. He loved spending time with Peter and it recently occurred to him that he’d started seeing Peter as more than just a mentee. He’d really been looking forward to the weekend. He and Peter were going to spend it upstate at the Compound, which he knew the kid had been ecstatic about.  
He ended up spending the weekend in the lab at the tower, checking his phone for updates from Peter every five minutes or so. Did he monitor Peter’s vitals through the sensor’s he’d secretly installed in the watch?  
Maybe.  
Did he regret it?  
Not in the slightest.

III  
The first anniversary of the snap—now called “the decimation” was a devastating day. The shops that were still open closed doors for the day, flags across the globe were put at half-mast (as if they hadn’t been that way since the decimation in the first place), and the world completely shut down for a day.  
No group of people, however, were more grieved than the Avengers. Not only had they lost a battle that cost half of the universe’s population, but they had also been unsuccessful in bringing them back. The stones had been destroyed and the Avengers disassembled.  
Tony hadn’t heard any updates about them since he received news of their confrontation with Thanos. He’d permanently moved out of the Compound a few months prior with no plans to ever return. He, Pepper, and their three-month-old baby Morgan had moved into a nice house by a lake about two hours away from the Compound and four hours from the city. He'd thought of leaving New York completely, but he couldn’t bear it.  
On the anniversary, Pepper knew that it was best to leave Tony to his own devices—under the careful eye of FRIDAY, of course. He’d pent himself up in the garage with schematics for Spider-Man Mark III pulled up in front of him. This was the first time he’d even looked at something vaguely resembling a picture of Peter since he was with the Avengers shortly after being saved from space. It hurt like hell.  
After what felt like minutes but had probably been hours, he spoke.  
“I’m so sorry that I couldn’t save you, Pete. I’ve been thinking for the past year that maybe if you’d kept your nose clean, you’d still be here annoying me. I know that nothing would have stopped you from dusting once that ball-faced bastard snapped his fingers, though. Pepper’s been telling me as much over and over again.  
“We’ve got a baby now, kid. I was so terrified that I’d mess up with her, heaven knows that I have absolutely no idea how to successfully operate a baby, but now I realize that I had practice. Actually, she’s much easier to handle than you were, Spider-Baby. At least she can’t climb walls or hack into my tech.”  
Tony dropped his head into his hands.  
“Damn, I miss you. You know you’ve got a room here? Everything is blue and red. I’ve got Star Wars LEGO sets waiting for you and five backpacks because I know how often you lose them. If you were here, I’d let you stay over all the time. And May, too. We’ve got room for her. I hope she’s with you, wherever you guys are. And Jed, too.”  
The day passed with Tony not speaking again until Pepper brought him inside for dinner. They ate in relative silence before she went to put Morgan to bed.  
While Pepper was upstairs in the nursery, Tony put up a picture that he found among Peter’s belongings from the Parker’s apartment (when he got back and found out that May was gone too, he went to their apartment and packed all their stuff). It was a small frame with the Internship picture in it. It was such a wonderful picture that, even with his intense guilt and grief, Tony couldn’t help but smile.

IV  
Some days, Tony missed Peter so much that he found it hard to focus on much else. August 10, 2022 was one of those days. Peter’s 21st birthday.  
They spent the day outside, swimming in the lake. Well, Morgan and Pepper were swimming. Tony was sitting in a chair trying not to dissociate. He flinched when he felt cold water drip onto his bare feet.  
“Daddy, are you having a sad day?” Three-year-old Morgan was standing in front of him, concern etched across her face.  
“Yeah, Morguna. Today is Peter's birthday.”  
“Oh. One second.”  
Morgan turned and marched over to the tallest tree on their property (she called it the Spider-Tree because she liked to imagine Spider-Man swinging from it) and yelled, “HAPPY BIRTHDAY PETEY!” before marching back over to Tony and climbing into his lap.  
Before Tony could say anything about her wet swimsuit soaking into his jeans, she asked him a question.  
“Tell me a story about Petey.”  
“Hmm...did I tell you about the time that...”  
Telling Morgan stories about her big brother always helped make his sad days a little better.  
***  
V  
The night before the “Time Heist” was a bad night. Everyone felt as if they were preparing for the most intense war of all time. There wasn’t much talking, everyone just sat around and stared at walls. They’d all lost someone in the Snap, so Tony had assumed that everyone felt the same way he did. Guilty, grief-ridden, and all-out missing his kid.  
After a while, Tony separated himself from the team (Pepper and Morgan were home at the lake house, just in case something went wrong) and went into his quarters. He recorded a message for his family (“I love you 3000”) and another message for Peter (“I did this all for you, kid”) before trying to get some sleep.  
He failed.  
He ended up spending most of the night thinking about one Peter Parker. He thought about the first time he met the kid, being impressed about his “great power, great responsibility” spiel. He thought about the kid coming into the lab on the anniversary of his Uncle Ben’s death and finally learning about where that thought came from. He thought about how worried he’d been when Peter showed up during the fight with the aliens and how much it had escalated when Peter reappeared on the ship headed for Titan. He thought about all the dinners he’d had with the Parkers and how much he imagined May would love Morgan. He thought about Fred and MJ, Peter’s friends. He thought about his life with Pepper and how it might have never happened if Peter hadn’t turned down his offer to join the Avengers.  
Damn, he owed that kid so much.  
Finally, around two hours before the team was to meet for the final meeting before the mission, he climbed back out of bed.  
“FRIDAY,” he spoke. “I need you to update something on my will.”  
“Yes, boss. What can I do for you?”  
“I want to leave EDITH and all of her subsystems to Peter Benjamin Parker. I also want you to let Pepper know, if I die, that the other AI I made for him is in her hands. She can give it to him when she sees fit.”  
“On it, boss. I’ll update that right away and save the message for Mrs. Stark in my database.”  
“Thanks, FRI.”

+I  
“Spider-Man’s name is Peter Parker!”  
Peter was currently running from just about everyone. He couldn’t reach May and he didn’t want to put her in any danger, so he went to the only place he knew could be safe for him—Avengers Tower.  
After climbing through the window, he pulled off the mask and sat on the bed, running his hands through his hair in stress.  
“I’m screwed,” he muttered.  
After a few minutes of stewing, there was a knock on his door. He looked up, wary.  
“It’s Pepper.”  
“Prove it.” Peter hated that his voice cracked right then.  
“Tony once accidentally wrote your name as Peter Stark on a paper he had to fill in for your school. He acted like it was nothing, but we both know he meant it.”  
The mention of Tony had Peter’s eyes welling up with tears. He knew that Pepper was really Pepper, though, so he opened the door.  
When Pepper saw his face, she pulled him into a gentle hug. “Oh, Pete.”  
Peter broke down with sobs, feeling kind of bad for getting tears and snot on Pepper’s expensive-looking shirt. She seemed to not mind, though, and ran her hand through Peter’s hair, murmuring assurances to the distraught boy.  
“We’re going to take care of this. Everything will be okay.”  
After a while, Peter pulled away.  
“Have you heard from May?”  
“She and Happy are on their way here, now. No one knows you’re here except for the four of us.”  
Peter fell back onto his bed. “I wish Tony was here. None of this shit would have happened if he’d been there.”  
Pepper sat next to him. “No, it wouldn’t have. But you’re just as smart as he was, if not more. We can fix this.”  
A moment of silence fell over the room, only being broken by Peter’s occasional sniffle.  
“He wanted me to give you something. I think now is as good a time as any.” Pepper pulled a flash drive out of her pocket and set it in Peter’s hand. “I’m going to go meet May and Happy downstairs. I think you should plug that in before we come back up.”  
Peter nodded, staring at the gift from Tony as Pepper left the room.  
He moved slowly over to his computer, dust-covered from five years of sitting untouched. He plugged the flash drive in and watched the lights come on.  
“Hey, kid.” Tony’s voice filled the room. Peter jumped back before realizing that it had come from the computer.  
“If you’re hearing this, then I guess I’m dead. Always knew it would happen eventually. Anyway, I put my voice into this AI for you, as well as some of my genius. I left Pepper up to the timing for when to give it to you. Are you in trouble?”  
Peter didn’t speak, too shocked to do anything other than listen to his mentor.  
“Use your words, Pete. Are you in trouble?”  
“Uh...y-yeah. I’m in so much trouble, Tony. I don’t know what to do.”  
“Well, we all know I’ve had my fair share of scandals, so this should be easy. Now, let’s see...”

**Author's Note:**

> come scream at me on my Tumblr @ironmanisalive


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